Friday, December 17, 2010

Poem: "After Adrienne Rich's "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law" 1-6"

After Adrienne Rich's "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law"

1. "You, once a belle in Shreveport"

The tallest of your secondary one class,
you posed against the older boys, front
double biceps, back lat spread, side chest,
taut postures you studied in magazines
while stroking your little flared cock.

You were only half surprised when you won.
Though the other boys had more to show,
you threw your hardest punch into the hand
you raised. You crushed your abdominals
as if jumping on a soda can you tossed.

You were still flushed the next morning
when an older boy, the one with strawberry lips,
grabbed and congratulated you, Muscleman!
Your arm jerked back before you could smile,
quicker, stronger, than you could catch.

2. "she hears the angels chiding, and looks out"

The angels fell silent after you left the church,
the boxy Baptist church converted from a cinema,
where you learned the parts of sinner and saint
with a cast of ten thousand. The drama was epic.
The stern trumpets died. You were on your own, outside.

Afraid of being seen by someone you knew, a student,
his parent, your colleague, your boss, the world,
you shuffled past the gay bar in Chinatown, shuttered
and safe in the day. You hung round in deadbeat malls.
You collapsed back into the couch and flicked the TV on.

From where I sit, looking out into drizzly New York,
the boyfriend sleeping in on Sunday, I could hardly
tell your desperate boredom, the two-for-one jingle.
I call out to you, but a small figure on the big screen
you thought you heard your name and slipped away.

3. “The beak that grips her, she becomes”

The monstrous, wrote Montaigne, is monstrous
only because we don’t know the whole universe.
The two headed child, the lady rough with beard,
the man who screeches for joy when ass fucked
are unremarkable phenomena on another planet.

Stuck on an island of belief, washed by disbelief,
you worked and kept your head down, terrified
that your second head would burst your shirt collar
and demand a view of the cubbies. You dreamed
of a cock fat as a soda can and woke in phantom pain.

Change scene, another island. Montaigne’s planet,
where men want to marry and raise kids with men,
where every person can be both equal and special.
Here I want to be normal as much as the next man,
but there are nights I hear the bearded lady speak.

4. “the prick filed sharp against a hint of scorn”

Be nice was the rule you were taught to live by.
You greeted, thanked, raised your hand, apologized.
You gave up your seat. You opened the door. You
waited in line for the promotion others fought for.
All this you did because you wanted to be liked.

Even now my best thought has the basest motive
as the head is ineluctably pinned down by the ass.
To be any stronger I will have to meet with scorn,
to court its sneer, to close with its backhanded
compliment, to heave its hint, be thrown and to rise.

In terms closer to this Advent: no longer to be
stabled in a stall, a baby tickled by the straw,
but a long limbed, clear eyed savior, crowing
under a crown of thorns, stapled to the cross.
To raise a hand by causing the body to be raised.

5. “she shaves her legs until they gleam”

Hot water running, you can shave your balls
until they glide, pimply like a plucked chicken.
You can hit the weights, on a strict schedule,
and experiment with protein drinks and diet
to cultivate the body like a rare flowering plant.

But you cannot take the chisel to the chin,
you cannot change the muddy eyes for sky
or wash the black off the imagined blond,
you cannot bleach the skin like a nice shirt
without looking monstrous in a nice shirt.

Sometimes you think you left your country
to get away from you. Sometimes you think
you left to get to some beautiful idea of you.
My likeness, you left everything to get to me.
My brother, I am everything that you have left.

6. “love, for you the only natural action”

The way the body bops to the jukebox’s be,
the louche sunlight, the martini’s torch,
late night cab fare, lunch specials for a week,
the roof gutter rapidly filling up with leaves,
paperclip hearts, leather harnesses, windup birds.

The truth that will never be told to the judge,
protest marches, marches to protest the protest,
fairground fingerpainting, airport fingerprinting,
the lab that speaks with the voice of the church,
secrets leaking, books burning, stem cells research.

The life pulsing along quick invisible lines,
habit’s resistance, the generated poems,
men making love to men, men making love to women,
men making love to machines, as do women,
the hearing aid, the heart pacer, something made.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2015

Lambda Finalist

"The Singapore-born poet’s first UK publication is disciplined yet adventurous in form, casual in tone and deeply personal in subject matter. Koh’s verse addresses the split inheritance of his postcolonial upbringing, as well as the tension between an émigré’s longing for home and rejection of nostalgia." - Maria Crawford in UK's Financial Times